We simply do not have enough warm bodies to devote Marines to protection details for government officials and diplomats.

Estimates range from 25,000 private guards working in Iraq, up to a possible 48,000 working for various security firms. Even if the true number is closer to the low-end estimate, that's too heavy a burden to place on our already-stretched military.

In light of recent incidents, however - including one in which guards employed by the North Carolina firm Blackwater shot and killed 11 Iraqis - more scrutiny is being placed on governance and control over these hired guns.

Because of American influence over Iraq's new constitution, employees of security firms such as Blackwater are exempt from prosecution in Iraq. The soldiers for hire are also in a legal gray area in the United States.

Families of the four Blackwater employees who were killed in Fallujah and then hung from a bridge in March 2004 have filed wrongful death suits against the company.

But Blackwater argues it is immune from prosecution because it acts as an extension of the U.S. military, and cannot be held responsible for wartime deaths.

But that line of reasoning means almost no one could hold Blackwater or other private security firms accountable for any corporate mismanagement or misdeeds committed by their employees.

The firms act outside the ordinary chain of military command, and their troops are not bound by codes of military conduct.

That lack of accountability among private firms is a liability to U.S. troops.

The results of a congressional investigation released this week indicated Blackwater sent those four men into Fallujah without the proper equipment or preparation. The grisly death of the Blackwater contractors led to the U.S. military's bloody assault on Fallujah - a move that cost lives on both sides, and did much to alienate average Iraqis from U.S. troops.

Tensions with Iraqi officials increased when a Blackwater employee was accused of shooting the bodyguard of Iraq's [filtered word]e vice president, Adel Abdul-Mahdi, in an off-duty incident in December.

The man was flown home and fired. While the company says it is cooperating with a Justice Department investigation, no charges have been filed.

Issues such as this, combined with recent charges of illicit weapons shipments and the latest incident, which Blackwater describes as a firefight, but Iraqi officials call wanton killing, call for greater federal oversight.

Private contractors are doing traditional military jobs, but are not under military authority and not beholden to international rules of war.

For years, Rep. David Price, D-N.C., has urged Congress to regulate the private security industry. It's time his colleagues heeded that call.

Because of American

influence over Iraq's new constitution, employees of security firms such as Blackwater are exempt from prosecution.